Back to Work Food Prep

Wow! I have been away for a while and I’ve missed you! It’s been a busy week, and I’ve successfully completed my first day away from Ezekiel.

In short, we all had a good day – I’ll expand on my thoughts/feelings/stresses later on. For now let’s focus on how I prepared last week.

Last week my parents came to visit before their departure to the US for the winter. It was so so so fantastic to have them here, and Ezekiel was over the moon. He is smitten with them and that makes my heart so happy. It goes without saying that they are equally or even more so smitten with him. So with them being here it was easy for me to keep my promise to myself. I did very minimal things (but I did learn how to hem pants thanks to my mom!), but the day they left I went into full fledged preparation/stress mode.

Honestly, preparing and organizing three people is like a full time job in itself! I spent the weekend doing laundry, cleaning the house, organizing meals, prepping Ezekiel’s food (in another post I’ll explain this), getting bottles ready, preparing my work bag and Ezekiel’s dayhome bag. I thought I’d share the food portion of my organizing.

I’ve been using my Erin Condren Life Planner to plan our suppers (this week looks like a huge mess!) we are just finishing up our last bulk order of meat so it’s been hard to plan original meals! Anyways on the days I’m working I’ve planned to use our freezer meals.

After planning our suppers I decided I needed to plan mine and Ezekiel’s full days of meals, that way I don’t have to think about food on the days I’m working. Since I work 12 hour days I have to plan every meal from breakfast to supper. We’ve had to start pureeing Ezekiel’s food again so I’ve left his blank for this week as I get used to it. For my dinners I’ll just eat what I’ve already planned for suppers at home. Snacks at work are essential to save me money and calories, otherwise I’ll be wandering to the coffee shop on my breaks and spending too much money on unnecessary things.

Although I didn’t plan specifics for Ezekiel’s meals I did spend Saturday morning prepping all this food for him. I mix and match for his lunches and suppers. So far he’s enjoyed each of my concoctions. It’s been great to be able to just grab the containers, and throw some stuff into the blender.

I reorganized our fridge to help with the planning. The top left shelf is all of Ezekiel’s food. the top right is beverages and dairy. The middle left is yogurt and fruit. Middle right is leftovers and miscellaneous. The bottom shelf I’ve placed our planned food.

The left is a bin for my lunches. All previously frozen into individual portions, I just pull them out of the freezer and put them in the bin. The middle is a bin for snacks I’ve prepared and frozen (granola bars/scones etc.) again I just have to pull them out of the freezer and place them in the bin. On the right is the meats I’ll be using for the week when I’m not working. I take them out of the freezer and put them in the bowl to thaw.

Behind the bowl I put the freezer meals that Carlos can grab and heat for suppers when I’m working.

I’ve only been back to work for a day but so far I’m loving this planning and prepping. It’s taken a lot of stress off of going back to work.

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Hey!

My name's Ashley, I'm a wife, momma, and nurse. I'm on a journey to simplify my life so that I can fully enjoy every moment without the distraction of "things". Thanks for stopping by and remember to say hello!